Indicator definition

Freight transport demand is defined as the amount of inland tonne-kilometre travelled every year in the EEA33. According to the latest metadata Inland freight transport includes transport by road, rail, inland waterways, air and maritime: rail and inland waterways transport are based on movements on national territory ('territoriality principle'), regardless of the nationality of the vehicle or vessel; road transport is based on all movements of vehicles registered in the reporting country.

The ratio of annual growth of inland freight transport to GDP, measured in 2005 prices, determines the amount of coupling between GDP and transport. The decoupling indicator, is defined as unity minus the coupling ratio. data index = 2000.

The modal split of freight transport is defined as the percentage share of modes (road and rail) to total inland transport. It includes transport by road, rail and inland waterways.

Units

The unit used to express freight transport volume is tonne-kilometre (tkm), which represents the movement of one tonne over a distance of one kilometre.

GDP is Gross Domestic Product express in constant euro, indexed to the year 2005.

Freight transport demand and GDP are shown as an index (2000=100).

The modal split share for freight transport is shown as a percentage (%).

Key messages

Over the past decade freight transport volume has grown rapidly and has generally been coupled with growth in GDP. This is particularly striking in recent years when there has been a surge in freight transport activity. Consequently the objective of decoupling GDP and freight transport growth has not been achieved. Closer inspection reveals large regional differences, with the EU-12 Member States showing much faster growth since 2000 in the freight transport sector, compared to the EU-15. This is mainly a result of these countries starting from a relatively low transport level and then experiencing a shift towards high value production and service industries, which has resulted in strong transport growth.

Key assessment

Overall in the EEA-32, freight transport demand has grown significantly since the early 1990s, thereby making it increasingly difficult to limit transport's impact on the environment. Between 1997 and 2007 the most extensive growth was in road transport with an average annual growth rate of 4.2 % in the EEA member countries. Between 1997 and 2007, rail and inland waterways freight (tkm) increased by 11 % and 10 % respectively. Different member States however display different trends. For example, between 1997 and 2007 the highest growth in freight transport has been in Ireland and Lithuania. The only Member state to show a decline in transport demand over this period was Denmark.

Road freight has seen the highest increases with Lithuania and Latvia experiencing growth of almost a factor of four between 1997-2007. In contrast Belgium and Denmark have seen a decline in road freight tonne kilometres over this period.

Rail freight has seen a much smaller increase in the EEA-32 Member States over the 1997 to 2007 period. Whilst overall there is a growth in tonne kilometres, 10 countries have seen a decline in rail freight over this period. The largest declines are seen in Ireland, Luxembourg and Bulgaria.

Inland Waterways (IWW) make up a much smaller proportion of the overall freight movement, with many countries experiencing declines or very small increases. Romania saw the greatest increase with growth of approximately 90 % between 1997 and 2007. The largest declines in IWW freight transport have been seen in Poland (2007 values are 69% of 1997 levels) and the Czech Republic (2007 values are 63 % of 1997 levels).

For the EU-15 Member States, the main explanation for tonne kilometres growing faster than GDP is that the internal market is leading to some relocation of production processes, causing additional growth in transport demand over and above the steady growth in GDP. For the EU-12 Member States, there has been a large shift in production away from traditional relatively heavy low-value industry towards higher-value production and services. This has led to strong freight transport growth, which has surpassed the growth in GDP.

Development of the Trans-European Networks under the TEN-T programme may facilitate further growth in freight volume due to the focus on relieving bottlenecks and expanding the infrastructure capacity. The revised guidelines have some provisions for environmental issues, namely a call on Member States to perform a Strategic Environmental Assessment of national transport programmes and a requirement that funding for TEN-T projects be conditional on compliance with EU environmental legislation. However, environmental concerns are secondary for the selection of projects and the overall environmental impacts have not been assessed.

Specific policy question: Is the share of goods transported by road being reduced relative to other transport modes?

Freight transport by mode

Note:Share of freight transport between road and rail transport mode for EU12 and EU15.

Specific assessment

In terms of mode share, road freight has the largest
share at 78% in 2007, whereas rail and inland waterways (IWW) are 17 %
and 5 % respectively, the same shares as in 2006. Since 1997, the share
of both rail and inland waterways freight has declined gradually. As a
result, the objective outlined in the Common Transport Policy (CTP) of
stabilising the mode shares of rail, inland waterways, short-sea
shipping and oil pipelines, and shifting the balance from 2010 onwards,
will not be achieved unless there is a strong reversal of the current
trend.

This development can be explained by looking
at the type of goods transported. This plays an important role in choice
of mode. Perishable and high-value goods require fast and reliable
transportation - road transport is often the fastest and most reliable
form available, providing much flexibility with pickup and delivery
points. Agricultural products and manufactured goods are some of the
most important goods transported throughout Europe. Their shares in
tonne-kilometres are also rising.

Because the
transport system allows it, modern production prefers 'just-in-time'
delivery of goods. Transport speed and flexibility are therefore of
great importance. Despite congestion, road transport is often faster and
more flexible than rail or water transport. In addition, as a result of
spatial planning and infrastructure development, many destinations can
only be reached by road, and combined transport is so far used only to a
limited extent. Furthermore, the road sector is liberalised to a great
extent, while the inland waterway and rail sectors have only relatively
recently been opened up to broad competition. The average tonne of goods
carried by road travels about 110 kilometres, a distance over which
rail or inland waterways are less efficient because road transport is
needed to and from the points of loading. Moreover, in using multi-modal
transport for such short distances, valuable time is lost due to lack
of standardisation of loading units and convenient and fast connections
between inland waterways and rail. For short-sea shipping, the average
tonne of goods is carried more than 1,430 km. Here, time is less of an
issue. The low price of shipping is probably of overriding importance.

However,
in terms of all freight transport volumes, sea shipping dominates when
international sea transport is also included. Due to methodological and
data reliability problems, sea transport is frequently omitted from
transport statistics, but volumes should not be underestimated. Data is
available for the EU-15 and it shows that the demand for intra-European
short-sea transport is roughly equivalent to the level of road
transport.

Data sources

Justification for indicator selection

The European Union (EU) set an objective to disconnect mobility from
its negative side effects. The transport sector is one of the main
sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and also gives rise to significant
levels of air pollution, which can seriously damage human health and
ecosystems. Reducing the demand for transport would consequently reduce
its environmental burden.

The relevance of modal split when considering the environmental
impact of freight transport arises due to differences in environmental
performance (resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, pollutant
and noise emissions, land consumption, accidents etc.) of transport
modes. Additionally the differences in performance within specific modes
can be substantial, e.g. older trains versus newer trains. The most
accurate environmental effect of mode shift can only be determined on a
case-by-case basis, where local circumstances and specific local
environmental effects can be taken into account (e.g. transport in urban
areas or through sensitive areas). Opportunities for modal
shift/co-modality depend on, amongst others, the type of goods lifted -
e.g. perishable goods or bulk goods - and the specific transport
requirements for these goods.

Scientific references:

No rationale references
available

Policy context and targets

Context description

The EU set itself the objective of reducing the link between economic growth and freight transport demand ('decoupling') in order to create a more sustainable transport network. Reducing the link between transport growth and GDP is a central theme in EU transport policy to minimise the negative impacts of transport:

The objective of decoupling freight transport demand from GDP was first mentioned in the Transport and Environment integration strategy that was adopted by the Council of ministers in Helsinki (European Council, 1999). Here, the expected growth in transport demand was named as an area where urgent action was needed. In the sustainable development strategy that was adopted by the European Council in Gothenburg, the objective of decoupling is set in order to reduce congestion and other negative side-effects of transport (European Commission, 2001a): “A sustainable transport policy should tackle rising volumes of traffic and levels of congestion, noise and pollution. Action is needed to bring about a significant decoupling of transport growth and GDP growth, in particular by a shift from road to rail, water and public passenger transport”.

Shifting freight from road to water and rail is an important strategic element in the EU transport policy. The objective was first formulated in the Sustainable Development Strategy in 2001 (European Commission, 2001a).

In the White Paper on the Common Transport Policy "European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide", (European Commission, 2001b) the Commission outlined concerns for curbing the demand for transport, which included the fact that economic growth will almost automatically generate greater needs for mobility, therefore increasing demand for goods services and for passengers. The objective of breaking the link between economic growth and transport growth was therefore considered as the basis for the White Paper for the next decade. Thus, a number of measures were proposed within the White Paper aimed at achieving mode shift and decoupling from GDP.

In the review of the Transport and Environment integration strategy in 2001 and 2002, the Council reaffirmed the objective of reducing the link between the growth of transport and GDP (European Council, 2002a and 2002b). The review also stated that the modal split should remain stable for at least the following ten years, even with further traffic growth.

In the Sixth Community Environmental Action Programme, decoupling of economic growth and transport demand is named as one of the key objectives in order to deal with climate change and to alleviate health impacts from transport in urban areas.

The European Commission's White Paper on transport published in 2011, " Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system" acts as a framework to guide future policy developments in the transport sector over the next decade. The White Paper sets out 10 goals for a competitive and resource-efficient transport system. These goals serve as benchmarks for achieving the target of a 60 % reduction in GHG emissions from transport by 2050 target (from 1990 levels).

Targets

Decouple transport growth significantly from growth in GDP in order to reduce congestion and other negative side effects of transport;

In the EU, a total of 30 % of road freight over 300 km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % should shift by 2050, facilitated by efficient and green freight corridors

Related policy documents

In 2001, the Commission issued a White Paper setting an agenda for the European transport policy throughout 2010. This programme was updated in the mid-term review of 2006. Approaching the end of the 10-year period, it is time to look further ahead and prepare the ground for later policy developments.

Methodology

Methodology for indicator calculation

To measure the decoupling of freight transport demand from economic growth, the volume of freight transport relative to GDP (i.e. the intensity) is calculated. Separate trends for its two components are shown for the EEA33. The annual tkm growth rate is therefore compared with the annual GDP growth rate. Relative decoupling occurs when freight transport demand grows at a rate below that of GDP. Absolute decoupling occurs when freight transport demand falls and GDP continues to rise or remains constant. If demand and GDP both fall, they remain coupled.

The unit is the tonne-kilometre (tkm), which represents the movement of one tonne over a distance of one kilometre.

Freight transport demand and GDP are shown as an index (2000=100). The ratio of the former to the latter is indexed on the previous year (i.e. annual decoupling/intensity changes) in order to be able to observe changes in the annual intensity of freight transport demand relative to economic growth.

Comments

Let the light shine in!

Decrease your CO2 emissions and keep your electricity bills low by making the most of natural light. Think about choosing pale-coloured walls, ceilings and floors, as well as mirrors, to reflect the daylight.
More green tips